With the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and the start of the first season, the focus of the CoD developers shifted from Modern Warfare to the new Cold War. A beginner from CoD MW complained on reddit that Modern Warfare is full of spam from Cold War and received quite a bit of agreement for that.
What’s the matter? On reddit, the user “HoriCZE” complained in two threads that as a newcomer to Modern Warfare, he bought the Battle Pass only to realize seconds later that all the items are only available for the new CoD Cold War and Warzone.
HoriCZE stated in his first reddit thread that the entire “Battle Pass” menu should disappear from CoD MW and received quite a bit of support for that. Everywhere, there is advertising for the new Cold War and the battle royale Warzone. Players of the “old” CoD, which had its own Battle Pass until a few weeks ago, are annoyed by the spam.
In his second, larger reddit thread, he elaborated on the problem. He describes the way CoD advertises the new games and the Battle Pass as a “scam.” Even more players confirm this and support HoriCZE and his views.
Battle Pass & Cold War bring nothing to “CoD MW” players – only advertising
What is the problem? With the start of Season 1, the developers merged 3 CoDs – CoD MW, Warzone, and Cold War. You can feed your rank, the prestige system, and the Battle Pass with experience points in all 3 games and earn rewards and unlocks for that. However, you only benefit from these progressions in Warzone and Cold War.
Now imagine you are starting anew in Modern Warfare or continuing to play. You find the shooter really strong, you want a bit of motivation and cosmetic items, and that’s why you’ve set your sights directly on the Battle Pass. After all, it’s aggressively advertised everywhere and after every match.
But apart from a few minor clues, there are hardly any indications that the Battle Pass is not intended for Modern Warfare. The purchased pass only brings a few XP tokens and some premium currency back. While you can recoup the cost of the pass, you have to put in significant playtime in return.
Especially the poor labeling and constant advertising for the new CoD and the battle royale Warzone cause frustration among some CoD soldiers.
CoD MW fans complain, but veterans are not surprised
What do players say about it? Both threads together gathered over 2,000 upvotes. On Twitter, the topic spread as well, and the tweet from “Call of Duty News@charlieINTEL” accumulated another 7,000 likes. In more than 800 comments on reddit and Twitter, players discuss what went wrong with the merging of the 3 CoDs. Many agree with HoriCZE’s opinion:
- therealdahla on reddit: “Yes, CoD MW and Cold War are really strange right now. One would expect that there would be 2 separate Battle Passes. But no, you have to play both, Cold War & Warzone, to unlock things. WTF is wrong with this game?”
- @ThatBoomer on Twitter: “As an MW player, I hate that the ‘Battle Pass’ menu is integrated into MW. Especially since the whole MW menu is already cluttered with Cold War & Warzone stuff. It’s a terrible user interface and brings me down every time I go online.
- @UnderwaterPixe1 on Twitter: “I don’t understand why they had to change all the menus and stuff to fit more with the ‘Cold War’ style. It completely ruined it in my opinion. They should change it back so that [CoD MW] feels like what it is: a separate game.”
But not everyone agrees. Especially CoD veterans who have experienced the annual title switch multiple times find the current state quite normal and not surprising. For instance, @Xxavix on Twitter states: “This is a way to promote the new game. Every year they advertise the new one through the old CoD, that’s always been the case. This year, they promoted it a bit more, but that’s nothing new.”
The annual CoD rhythm is a given for many players. However, due to the massive battle royale Warzone and its close connection to Modern Warfare, everything has gotten a bit muddled. There are still many soldiers who enjoy playing in the Modern Warfare multiplayer and would welcome new cosmetics and fresh content. A developer has already expressed hope for new content for CoD MW, but the abrupt switch and aggressive promotion of Cold War were not well received by many.
What do you think about the problem? Do you also think that the adjustments in the Modern Warfare menu go a bit too far? Or do you think it’s just like every year and thus a matter of getting used to?
